U.S. Navy veteran John Spear, a medic with the 1st Marine Division, was among the first ashore during invasion landings at Cape Gloucester, New Britain and Peleliu during World War II.

The California native left Glendale High School during his junior year to enlist in the military. All of Spear’s friends and close buddies had already left school, and he was eager to join the war effort.

His dad finally relented and soon Spear was on his way to boot camp at the Naval Training Center in San Diego. Afterward, he was tapped to be a medic and sent to a naval hospital in Southern California for training.

One day he saw his name up on a board. He’d been reassigned.

“I was no longer a sailor,” he said. “I became a Marine.”

After additional training at Camp Pendleton, “I was shipped to the South Pacific with the 1st Marine Division to replace casualties and deaths from Guadalcanal.”

He was sent to Pavuvu, a coconut plantation run by natives until 1941 when the U.S. declared war on Japan and the Imperial Navy swept through.

The invasion of Cape Gloucester was launched on Dec. 26, 1943. The mission: capture the enemy airfield.

Although the Marines came under little resistance during that landing, the conditions were challenging.

Spear was in the midst of the fight, and as a field medic, his job was to stop the pain and the bleeding.

“I carried a lot of morphine and sterilized bandages to plug up the wounds,” he said.

Once a Marine was patched up, a stretcher team ran out and took the patient back to a field hospital.

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The Marines returned to Pavuvu after the battle for a short rest — and to prepare for the invasion of Peleliu.

“That was a blood bath. We were supposed to be there for three days. We were told this was going to be quick ..there was heavy, heavy opposition. The Japanese were dug in, in coral reefs, heavy bunkers.

“I was with a group of infantry guys. Our half-track got stuck on a coral reef ...water was over my head ... we threw our packs and weapons away and swam ashore. I kept my morphine and some of my sterile bandages.

“That was brutal ... they used a lot of mortars, there was a lot of shrapnel, a lot of shrapnel wounds. I was told not to take any shrapnel out because it would cause more bleeding.”

The 1st Marine Division (Reinforced) received a Presidential Unit Citation, “For extraordinary heroism in action against enemy Japanese forces.”

Spear, who was aboard the USS Knudsen when the war ended in August, 1945, was in Tokyo Bay when the Japanese signed surrender papers on the USS Missouri.

“The highlight of my life was the fact that we got to participate in the Sept. 2 surrender signing ... we went right by the USS Missouri ...there were ships as far as you could see,” Spear said.

“I think every ship in the South Pacific was there to celebrate that event, which is awesome. They also had a flyover. The sky was just filled with airplanes.

“I was sitting on the deck watching that — we were tied up in the dock — and I wondered, ‘What in the world were the Japanese thinking when they saw all that power?’ We were a sleeping giant.”

“When you look back — you’re probably not thinking about it at the time — you spent some of the best years of your life in the military, but you were doing it for a reason ... I’m a better person for it.”